MADISON, Alabama -- Two months shy of its first anniversary and the Madison Hospital Breast Center has far exceeded its year one goal.

The Madison Hospital Breast Center features the latest in imaging technology. (File photo)

Through August, it had conducted 4,091 mammograms, since opening in December 2012.

"We exceeded our projected volume in business by 1,000 mammograms," Jennifer Brewington, director of Outpatient Health for Women and Children Huntsville Hospital. "And that's new business, that's not just transfers.

"Our numbers each month just keep climbing. I think in August we had a record month with 490 screenings," she said.

The number of visitors is even more encouraging, Brewington added, considering Huntsville Hospital opened the new satellite branch with no extra money budgeted for promoting it.

The Madison Hospital Breast Center is located on the second floor of Progress Bank, which is in front of the main hospital building on U.S. 72. It's location is ideal for catching Madison women commuting to and from work or popping in on an early or late lunch break.

The satellite center also took some pressure off the hospital's main breast center in downtown Huntsville, which was at full capacity doing both mammograms and diagnostic work, she said.

"They're in and out in 15 minutes (at Madison). You can move a lot of volume on a couple of machines," Brewington said.

Patients are screened with the latest technology from Hologic Selenia Dimensions. Besides being easier to use and having built-in safeguards - fingerprint recognition for technicians being one - it can handle a variety of breast sizes. Older equipment sometimes meant taking four images of larger breasts and then piecing the images together. The Madison equipment requires just one photo, reducing the amount of radiation used on a patient.

The new equipment also is 3-D capable, a new technology recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration that allows radiologists to more clearly characterize breast tissue. The center is not using the 3-D technology yet because it is still ahead of what most insurance companies are ready to reimburse. It's an expensive upgrade for the software and training, but Brewington said the 3-D aspect likely will be in play next year.

"I imagine at some point, as the benefit is proven more and more, especially in teaching hospitals where they have the luxury of having these new technologies and they see the benefit grow and grow, we will turn 3-D on," she said. "It will cost us significantly to turn it on. But we're almost there."

Proceeds from the Liz Hurley Ribbon Run helped pay for imaging equipment at the Madison center, and Brewington said it will probably play a key role in bringing the 3-D equipment on line.

This article was updated Oct. 8 to remove text that said patients at the Huntsville Hospital clinic sometimes had to wait two hours for mammograms. Hospital officials say mammograms take about 15 minutes at both the Madison and Huntsville centers.